Elder Advocates Of Alberta Society

Psychiatrist Dr. Aubrey Levin, sexually assaulted patients

Calgary psychiatrist Dr. Aubrey Levin was sentenced to five years in a federal prison for the “horrible” violation of three male patients, including one who took spy watch video of the abuse.

The Honourable Justice Donna Shelley noted Levin, 74, had taken advantage of vulnerable psychiatric patients, two of whom were sent to him as a result of court orders.

“All three went to Dr. Levin for help in addressing their emotional and psychological problems and/or substance abuse issues,” the Court of Queen’s Bench judge said.

“What is clear is that Dr. Levin, knowing of the many vulnerabilities of these victims, employed a strategy which would give him the opportunity to sexually assault his patients,” she said.

“Dr. Levin’s profession and his training would make him more informed than the average sexual assaulter to the serious psychological and emotional harm that can result for a sexual assault.”

One of the victims who accused former forensic psychiatrist Dr. Aubrey Levin of sexual assault testified that the abuse began shortly after he began visiting the doctor in 2001.

R.B. said the fondling of his genitals continued for virtually every visit until he reported it to police in March 2010 – a total of about 30 sessions primarily ordered by the court as part of probation attached to criminal convictions.

He told Crown prosecutor Bill Wister he did not disclose the sexual molestation to anyone for so long because he was afraid he would be “jailed or put in a strait jacket.’

ABSOLUTE POWER

“I was in shock, scared and worried,” R.B. testified at Levin’s trial at Court of Queen’s Bench. “I knew Dr. Levin could send me to jail by the snap of his fingers.

“He would say I was delusional . . . if he was to say I was a danger I could be sent back instantly to an institution.”

R.B. said the sexual abuse always occurred when only he and Levin were in either the doctor’s office or an examination room at Peter Lougheed Centre, and that Levin would close the blinds before he touched him.

R.B. told the court that Levin would take down books from his shelves and show him “pictures of penises and vaginas. He would show me different parts that were sensitive for sexual acts.”

“Other times, he would tell me about his past, when he was in the army, forcing men to rape women,” he said.

The judge in addressing Aubrey said, “Your actions in sexually assault (them) constitutes horrible violations of the trust that these three patients placed in you as their psychiatrist.”

The judge said the patients were already troubled men when they came into Levin’s care. These three men were already emotionally and psychologically fragile,” Shelley said.

Crown prosecutor Dallas Sopko had sought a sentence in the range of six to eight years, but Shelley said because of Levin’s advancing age and poor health a lesser term was warranted.

She said had the doctor been young and healthy, an eight-year sentence would have been imposed.